“Son, a real battlefield lacks dignity and honor. When lives are being spent—actual human lives—those high-minded concepts lose their meaning. All that matters is victory. If you have blades, you’ll use blades. If you have rocks, you’ll use rocks. If there’s nothing but sand, you’ll throw the damn sand. A true war is only waged when men don’t want to live to see what failure looks like. You do what it takes to win. You go wherever necessity takes you.”

“Let me take a moment to point out the glaringly obvious. Humans are idiots.”

“To pass the time, I made valiant strides in my effort to read Ulysses, but feared I was losing the war. A hundred pages in, I was getting the sneaking suspicion that James Joyce might have been an asshole, and by Nebraska I was in a foul mood.”

“Rei glanced over at me and nodded. “Exactly, Dieter. Just avoid having the cattle and keep walking.” I cleared my throat. “A cow. It’s ‘don’t have a cow.’” Rei frowned. “I fail to see why it must be a female.”

“Stumbling out of the debris cloud, I ran smack into Jules."What the hell did ya do?" she asked in exasperation. "I mean, I only left ya alone for thirty minutes and---""Not me, Boss!" I gasped,coughing up some drywall."Monique. Rei. Schoolhouse-rumble.""Oi," Jules said, face-palming."For the love of the spirit, what for?"I dusted myself off. "Street cred, yo. Street cred.”

“I snipped off the stem and took a knee."For you, my love. A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet as your feet."Jules smacked me on the back of the head.”

“Internal bleeding?""Indeed," she said, gesturing to a bag of light red fluid. "You pee blood as we speak."I felt down to my nether regions and blushed. There was a tube in my wee-wee. Rei smiled gleefully.”